


On Borrowed Faith

by Lilacblossoms (Eiliem)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, VLDgen, mostly comfort, not season 7 compliant, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 07:58:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15636516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eiliem/pseuds/Lilacblossoms
Summary: Shiro knows the things he did under Haggar's control weren't his fault.He definitely, absolutely knows.It's not a problem.(It's a problem.)





	On Borrowed Faith

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cheesethesecond](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheesethesecond/gifts).



His first few days out of the Black Lion pass in a blur. He sleeps through most of it, tucked in a makeshift bed Coran threw together in a corner of the Blue Lion. It had been decided that Shiro shouldn’t be out of reach of Allura until they had a better grasp of the state of his health. He hadn’t been awake for that conversation.

The fifth time he wakes in two quintants they've landed somewhere, and Shiro can hear the sounds of rowdy cheer from outside the Blue Lion's open mouth.

His team is sitting in a loose semi-circle, watching Keith and his mother spar, cheering loudly against their teammate.

“Yeah Galra Mom!” Hunk shouts cheerfully from his place in the semi-circle.

“Kick his butt, Krolia!” Lance yells.

Pidge says nothing but looks up briefly from where she has Keith's armour spread across her lap; fixing his jetpack, probably.

Keith ignores them and lunges low at his mother.

He's injured, Shiro’s heart protests, as Krolia flips Keith hard onto the ground.

Keith bounces back, slower than he should, but he looks relaxed, calm, happy. Focused, and intent as he always is, but there's a small smile at the corner of his mouth that tells Shiro that injured or not, he's enjoying the play fight.

Krolia must have the same thought as Shiro though, she raises a hand to end the bout and Keith drops his stance, smiling loosely.

The cheerful ribbing continues, until Krolia turns to the group.

“Who's next?”

Dead silence answers her.

Keith grins, sharp and wicked. “I think Lance wanted to volunteer.”

Lance squawks and Hunk hurriedly shouts out a “Not it!”

“It would be good practice for you, Lance.” Allura says. “Especially for your footwork; we could all learn something from Krolia.”

Krolia inclines her head in acknowledgement of the compliment, while Keith hauls Lance bodily to his feet.

Shiro wonders if he should step in; he's hung back so far, still half in the Blue Lion's mouth, because he knows the moment everyone notices he's awake, he'll be the center of attention and he hasn't wanted to interrupt their fun, but Lance’s body language is very uncertain.

But Keith claps Lance on the shoulder and ducks his head in close to tell Lance something, too quiet for Shiro to hear, and Lance nods and straightens. He doesn't even fight Keith’s playful shove, as he stumbles further into the center of the circle to meet Krolia, and Keith extricates himself from the group.

Keith, still smiling, brightens even more when he notices Shiro. He casts an eye on their teammates behind him, and silently climbs the ramp to meet Shiro.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” He asks, voice quiet.

“Good. Better. _Awake_ , finally.”

Keith grins wider for him.

“Wanted a bit of quiet before you get mobbed?” He asks, fond and happy and dead serious about Shiro’s privacy.

Shiro can’t help but smile back at him, wry. “Maybe.”

“Hungry?”

“ _God_ yes.”

 

A little furtively - because Shiro _should_ greet the team, he really should, but, well, food - they sneak away from the group, where Hunk and Pidge have now turned on Lance and are calling for Krolia to dump him on his ass, while Allura switches between shouted instructions and encouragements.

There’s a rough camp kitchen set up between the Yellow Lion’s forelegs. Keith motions for Shiro to take a seat while he busies himself with reheating what _could_ be porridge if Shiro pretends really, really hard. It smells incredible, even if the colour and consistency are...unfortunate. Shiro thinks a silent apology to Hunk and resolves to eat it with his eyes closed.

Keith laughs at him outright when he does just that.

Keith looks _happy_ , and there’s a part of Shiro’s brain that keeps tripping over that, watching for signs of injury or pain, or any evidence of the toll this absolutely _shit_ week has taken on him.

All he sees is Keith: clear-eyed, relaxed, and unexpectedly cheerful.

He doesn’t _look_ like he survived two impossible fights back to back, half a galaxy apart.

Except for the lurid mark on his face, neatly bisecting his right cheek, he looks like the whole thing could have been nothing more than a bad dream.

Almost unconsciously, Shiro reaches over to trace the line of Keith’s scar. Keith’s expression immediately shutters, all trace of light smiles and easy laughter gone. “Don’t.”

Shiro pulls his hand back, raises it in surrender. “I wasn’t going to.” Probably. Maybe?

He knows, objectively, that the injury wasn’t his fault. He even knows that it wasn’t the _clone’s_ fault. Not really. Not in any way that mattered.

But he _remembers doing it_.

He trusts Keith to know that Shiro would never, _ever_ want to hurt him. And it’s the only thing steeling his tongue against an apology.

Because it’s one thing to know, in his mind, that the fight...the things he did _and said_ to Keith weren’t his fault. It’s an entirely other thing to feel like he’s not responsible.

He does. Feel responsible.

He didn’t in the Black Lion’s mindscape. He’d felt frustrated, or worried, or afraid. Full of love for his team who were all doing their very best without him. And always so, so proud. But never responsible. How could he? He was dead.

He feels responsible now. And guilty. Ashamed.

Proud, full of love, glad to be alive. And heartbroken.

He remembers hurting them. And he remembers helping them. And the lines didn’t so much blur as vanish when Allura put him in this body with its own memories and feelings and guilty grief.

Shiro hasn’t decided what to make of it. Whether they are two people in one body, or the single sum of two consciousnesses melded together by Altean alchemy or….something else.

He doesn’t feel like two people.

“I’m proud of you.” He tells Keith, in lieu of apologizing. Because it’s the truth, and the only true thing Shiro feels he can lay on Keith right now.

The effect of his words is instantaneous: Keith ducks his head, smiles, relaxes.

No one, in any universe, has ever deserved this level of love and trust and Shiro hadn’t even done anything special to earn it.

He’d had no idea what he was getting into, young recruitment officer Takashi Shirogane, when he’d decided to reach out to a small anxious high-school kid with sharp reflexes and daredevil driving. Keith has repaid that friendship a thousand times over.

“I’m lucky I met you.” Because “thanks for saving me” is trite, and “I’m sorry you keep having to rescue me” would offend, and “how many times are you gonna have to save me before this is over” is…

Too close.

“Shiro.” Keith says, voice low, eyes unwavering. “Me too.”

Shiro isn’t stupid enough to minimize what he means to Keith, or to downplay just how important his bare-minimum-human-decency was in the face of a younger Keith’s loneliness and hurt. There’s humility and then there’s willful ignorance and Shiro _knows better_.

So he shoves away the little voice that wonders and doubts.

He trusts Keith. He’ll trust this too.

**Author's Note:**

> AUGH this has been 90% done since the week Season 6 came out and I've procrastinated my perfectionist ass on it till now. BUT I GOT IT IN BEFORE SEASON 7 DROPPED and that's all that matters.
> 
> I have thousands of words of more of this sketched out so...maybe I'll force myself to add those? Even though they will ABSOLUTELY not be season 7 compliant :/
> 
> Probably I will continue to make little edits to this because it's unBetaed. And also as I add more to what I'm *hoping* will be a little one-shot road trip series I might come back and fix stuff.


End file.
